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A DRAMATIC CRITIC
adaptation of means to ends than this has
not been seen upon the stage within our
time. Dubosc is as depraved a character
as Louis: but in the robber of the Lyons
mail-coach reckless courage replaces ti-
midity; violence alone does the work
which the king divides between it and
chicane, and the element of superstition
is wanting. The professional thief and
murderer is of course less varied and in-
teresting than the kingly member of his
guild. But Mr. Irving's portraiture of the
former is of comparatively less dramatic
worth for that reason, and no other. His
Dubosc is perfect in its kind, and the con-
trasts between it and Louis serve to ex-
emplify not only the keen discrimination
of the actor, but the fine propriety and
thoroughness of his artistic sense. The
theme is low, but there is a high and legit-
imate aesthetic pleasure in the contempla-
tion of such a creature as Dubosc, when
face, carriage, speech, and action, the very
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